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Busy Bee Promotional Portrait
Visual image
Busy Bee
Datec.1980
Mediumpaper (fiber product)
DimensionsOverall (HWD): 10 × 8 in. (25.4 × 20.32 cm)
Credit LineMoPOP permanent collection
Object number1998.827.205
Text EntriesKnown for his comedic rhymes, old school MC, Busy Bee/Chief Rocker Busy Bee/Busy Bee Starski (David Parker, b. 1962) gained a large following from MC Rap battles in the Bronx, Staten Island, Brooklyn, and New Jersey. Busy Bee, who was known for his fashion sense, was a member of the Cassanova Gang who was also admired for their dress style. When he became a famous local DJ, his fashion sense also added to his popularity. He was called “Busy Bee Starski” because he was known to switch from one Rap group to the next and his peers said his rhyming style was like Love Bug Starski. Busy Bee worked with several of New York’s best Hip-Hop DJs, including Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Busy Bee’s legacy as an expert jive-rapper who made an impact on the early years of Hip-Hop because of his humorous and crowd-motivating rhymes.
Black and white promotional portrait photo of Busy Bee photographed in front of a brick wall background.
CopyrightThis work is issued under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) License. For more information, go to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
On View
Not on view
Busy Bee
Date: c. 1980
Medium: paper (fiber product)
Object number: 1998.804.3
Busy Bee
Date: 1987
Medium: ink; paper (fiber product)
Object number: 1999.733.25
Busy Bee
Date: 1989
Medium: ink; paper (fiber product)
Object number: 1999.733.27
Busy Bee
Date: 1987
Medium: ink; paper (fiber product)
Object number: 1999.733.37
Busy Bee
Date: October 3, 1981
Medium: ink; paper (fiber product)
Object number: 2000.665.20
Busy Bee
Date: 1986
Medium: ink; paper (fiber product)
Object number: 2002.396.67
Busy Bee
Date: c. 1986
Medium: leather; velours
Object number: 1998.804.1
Busy Bee
Date: c. 1987
Medium: leather
Object number: 1998.804.2
Busy Bee
Date: 1985
Medium: metal;wood
Object number: 1999.64.1
Busy Bee
Date: 1981
Medium: ink; paper (fiber product)
Object number: 1998.802.11
Busy Bee
Date: 1981
Medium: ink; paper (fiber product)
Object number: 1998.802.24
Chief Rocker Busy Bee Starski
Date: 1983
Medium: ink; paper (fiber product)
Object number: 1999.733.49